


Stress Release

by gonergone



Category: Santa's Husband - Daniel Kibblesmith & A. P. Quach
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-09-05 05:33:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16804603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gonergone/pseuds/gonergone
Summary: Stress was the problem.





	Stress Release

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fenellaevangela](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fenellaevangela/gifts).



Stress was the problem.

Three weeks before Christmas, David found his husband in the bedroom, reorganizing his sock drawer. It was something Santa did when the days got shorter and darker and he knew that the Christmas season was almost on top of them. He slowly became more and more stressed out and would try to get rid of his nervous energy by cleaning out the refrigerator, then organizing the medicine cabinet, then, eventually, moving onto the overflowing closets and dressers of the bedroom, and that would take him through all the holiday festivities, when his stress would abruptly end and he'd stop, usually in the middle of a drawer that would remain half-finished until next November.

David had been watching this cycle repeat itself with growing alarm for years before he finally put his foot down, sitting next to Santa as he was sorting through their combined collection of bow ties, dividing by color and style. 

"I think," he started, trying to think of the most diplomatic way to phrase things, "we need to find another way to channel this energy of yours." 

Santa blinked at him, blinked at the piles of ties in front of him, and then blinked at David again. "Do we? I find this very soothing, and some of these neither of us have worn for at least five years."

"I know, and it's not that I don't appreciate it, but I don't think it's helping. I know cleaning is your comfort zone, but I think sometimes it's important to go outside your comfort zone, and this is one of those times. Instead of helping your stress levels, you just start stressing about the cleaning."

"The house is never cleaner than in mid-December," Santa sighed, "and you know neither of us are much for cleaning generally."

He did have a point there, but David reached for his hand, threading their fingers together and squeezing lightly. "I worry about you," he said gently, and was relieved when Santa squeezed back.

"I don't know how _not_ to be stressed once Halloween's over," Santa explained slowly. "There's just too much that can go wrong." He pulled at the end of his white beard gently, something he did unthinkingly when he was deep in thought. David had always thought it was adorable but had never figured out how to tell him he did it without embarrassing him. "I know I can't do everything, but I can't seem to stop myself from _worrying_ about everything."

David squeezed his hand again, affectionately. "I know. I tried to think of something else we could do to help, but it's not really my area, I'm afraid. I did a Google search on destress techniques and I thought we could try some of them out over the next few weeks." He showed Santa the sheaf of print outs. "I figure there's got to be one or two things in here that will work for us."

"For _us_?" 

"You don't think I'm going to make you do them alone, do you? I thought we could try them together."

Santa leaned close and kissed him. "Sounds good to me." 

Which was exactly what David had hoped he would say.

*

It took Santa an hour to flip through everything David had printed out, circling various things and crossing other things out with great prejudice. 

"Do you know what you want to try first?" David asked, resting his chin on Santa's shoulder and peering at the pages. "Is there anything that looks like it might work at all?"

Santa chuckled, handing him one of the sheets. "It looks like this site recommends sex as great for relieving stress."

David's eyebrows went up. "I thought we already have that. Kind of a lot, if I remember correctly."

"And yet I'm still stressed out." Santa mock-pouted before raising an eyebrow at him. "Are we doing it wrong?"

David kissed him hard, grazing Santa's lips with his teeth. "Maybe. Maybe we should practice more? I'm sure there are some videos we could watch to check our form." He was secretly pleased that Santa was taking this whole destress idea so seriously – he'd thought he'd have to argue hard for it or cajole at the very least. 

"They're called vids now," Santa corrected, "and there is definitely nothing wrong with our form." He sighed, flipping to the second page of the article and shaking his head. "As much as I would like to believe sex is the answer to all our problems, if it actually destressed me as much as this makes it sounds like it will neither of us would have felt a hint of stress in the past two decades."

"To be fair, I can't ever recall feeling stress during. Or right after."

Santa hummed in agreement, then cleared his throat. "Well, there was that one time," he said quietly, and it took David a moment to remember what he was talking about. 

"You mean the dolls? Watching us with their button eyes?"

"Their eyes were _resin_ ," Santa pointed out, in the defensive tone he always got whenever someone underestimated the quality of work that came out of the workshop. "And they were very lifelike." 

"Right." David opened his mouth to tease him but closed it again when he saw the way Santa was blushing slightly. "If more sex is out, what else looks good? If you want, I can see what else –"

"Actually, there is something I'd like to try." He said it hesitantly, giving David a shy smile.

"This is something I'm not going to like," David surmised, and was rewarded with Santa quirking his lips.

"Sometimes it's important to go outside your comfort zone," Santa said primly, which made them both laugh. "Anyway, I'd like to point out that you gave me all these articles, so you have no one to blame but yourself."

As if there was anything new about _that_. "What exactly do you have in mind?" David asked, feeling a tinge of nervousness.

"Well, I know you have a thing about doing physical things in a class of strangers…"

"I don't have a _thing_. That Pilates instructor had it out for me. She –" He stopped. "Wait, you want us to try Pilates again?" He tried to keep the rising horror out of his voice. If Pilates would help Santa's stress levels, then he would happily do Pilates every day for the rest of his life and keep his grumbling private. 

"I was thinking yoga might be fun. I know the public library has yoga classes every Wednesday, so I thought we could try it then?" Santa gave him a hopeful smile, and David smiled back.

"Yoga sounds great," he told him, summoning as much fake excitement as he could.

Which, of course, didn't fool Santa at all.

"If we don't like, it, we don't have to keep going."

"No, I want to, I'm just not as flexible as I used to be."

"You seem flexible enough to me," he said slyly, wrapping an arm around David.

David kissed his cheek. "I think it should be interesting, at least."

*

It _was_ interesting. 

David's attempts at downward dog and bridge pose made Santa smile, so he purposely was bad at dolphin pose just to get him to laugh, probably irritating the other people in the class but definitely worth it. Corpse pose was both of their favorites, and he saw Santa's breathing even out and thought maybe he was falling asleep next to him, but then his eyes opened and he grinned over at David, and David grinned back.

By the end of the first class, David thought that it looked like they had found their stress reliever. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply and supposed this meant that he'd have to clean out his own sock drawer in the future. He had never looked forward more to anything in his life.


End file.
